When I started my job, the one thing that had me the most worried was the groceries. How on earth was I going to manage the job AND the supermarkets? Tabitha in Hanoi looked at me incredulously when I told her this. Her opinion is that shopping in Vietnam is EASY. Way better than at home, she says. Just go to the market! she says.
Well fine.
I DO go to the market. Where I buy fresh fruit and vegetables. That's the easy part. If you think walking through blood puddles while dodging malevolent motorcyclists and hoiking grandfathers and carrying heavy bags of mangos and Thai basil in 35 degree heat is easy.
Anybody who has been here to visit knows that I actually adore the market, smelly bloody mess that it is, on a tourist basis. It's when I have to go to the market because I have no choice that I kind of hate it. A bit.
Martin insists on muesli for his breakfast (some poo-related reasoning, that I'll spare you the details of). And we like milk. And decaffeinated tea. That means the fancy western supermarket.
We eat meat. That means the Metro - a half-hour cab ride away. Of course I can get meat at all kinds of places, but I have thing about refrigeration. And requiring it on my meatstuffs. I can only shop at the metro if I bring a copy of my passport. The metro doesn't give you shopping bags. The taxis are at the other end of a sloping car park. There are speed limit signs painted on the ground of the car park 5kph. As if I could keep my bulk purchases laden trolley to less than 5kph.
Buying any kind of fresh item at the supermarket, or the metro means queuing at the scales to get a barcode. Queuing in Vietnam means getting shoved around, ignored, and occasionally yelled at. Pushed in front of. Lots of silent disapproving pointing from supermarket staff. Apparently I don't wrap my vegetables in enough plastic.
Repeat for meat.
Once I'm through that section, my internal supermarket monologue goes like this:
Where is the goddam toilet paper? Out of stock? Really? Of toilet paper?
Shampoo. Cannot access shampoo. 5 Vietnamese women opening and sniffing every bottle. Why won't they move? Oh she's moving. No. No she's not. Maybe if I smile at her. I'll beam. Nobody can resist my beaming confused foreigner face. BEAM. Why won't they move?
Bitches! They've stolen my trolley again! How can they just dump the stuff out of my trolley like that?
What is this stuff? Is is nuts? Is it seeds? Oh. It's MSG. Right. There are VARIETIES of MSG?
17 aisles of MSG and no salt.
Why has the cheese got a padlock on it? Are people that desperate for cheese? It's not even the expensive cheese. It's the Vietnamese cheese. Steal the expensive cheese! There's like, roquefort right there and you people are stealing the Vietnamese cheese?
Ooh look! Weird kitchen implements! What's this for? What's this for? Do I need a strainer? Pegs! No, I don't need a strainer. Wait, what about a lemon squeezer. Ooh! Whisks. I like whisks.
Plastic cake plates. Are they nice or are they awful?
Which one of these is rice wine vinegar? How many things can you make vinegar out of anyway?
Teabags. Hm. Ok. Fine. Lipton yellow label spew tea it is.
So, if I buy this deodorant I'll get a free towel, but if I buy that deodorant I'll get a pudding bowl. Pudding bowl, towel. Towel, pudding bowl. Can't decide. No deodorant. Why can't men buy their own deodorants? Dammit. If I don't buy him deodorant then I'll have to hide mine. Fine. Towel. Why does deodorant come with a pudding bowl?
Ooh look! If I buy this bottle of fish sauce I can get that huge bag of MSG.
Is that pigeon or chicken? Oh. It's frogs. Ooh! Chicken foetuses! Gory!
The cake plates are horrible. What IS WRONG WITH YOU WOMAN? YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE AN OVEN - WHEN ARE YOU EVER GOING TO SERVE A CAKE?
Sore feet.
So, the smallest number of toothbrushes I can buy is 3. I know, I'll buy 12 toothbrushes. I could set up a business selling toothbrushes on the street.
I'm hungry. Do they have any of those cakey things with the coconut inside? There is hardly ANYTHING in my trolley. What did I come here for anyway? What does it say on the list? Toilet paper. Salt. If I don't find any toilet paper how am I going to wipe my arse? Have I got any tissues at home? Maybe some wet wipes.
OK. I'll just get one of those whisks and then I'll queue.
Queue. Don't push in front me don'tpushinfrontofmedon'tpushinfrontofmedon'tpushinfrontofme. Look dude, I get that you're only buying one bottle of whisky and a pack of cigarettes but DON"T PUSH IN FRONT OF ME? You're only like, 14. Go back to school! Fine. You go first.
She's waggling the sponges at me. I'm not allowed to buy these sponges? FINE THEN.
One million, seven hundred and eighty four thousand, eight hundred and forty dong. That's a ridiculous number. When is it going to stop sounding like play money? Oh look! She gave me a lolly!
Durian-flavoured?
Taxi. NO I don't want to go on xe om. YES, I understand that you can carry all this shit on a xe om. NO.
There are no taxis. oh look! Here comes a dodgy taxi. Should I, shouldn't I? He'll probably just take the long route, not stop and rape me. Ok fine, dodgy taxi.
Me
Tran Nhat Duat.
Dodgy taxi driver
EEAH?
Me
Tran Nhat Duat.
Dodgy taxi driver
EEAH?
Me
Tran Nhat Duat.
Dodgy taxi driver
EEAH?
Me
Tran Nhat Duat.
Dodgy taxi driver
EEAH?
Me
Tran Nhat Duat.
Dodgy taxi driver
EEAH?
Me
Tran Nhat Duat.
Dodgy taxi driver
EEAH?
Me
Just drive. I'll point.
Damn. I forgot eggs.
Argh! There's blood all over everything. Can you get salmonella from the chicken juice in your shoes?
Do you see? I HATE shopping in Vietnam.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Shopping in Vietnam
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Baby Jesus could get the ostrich to poop.
Oh the pressure!
So many people responded to my last post that now I feel like I ought to deliver some wonderful juicy piece of trashy gossip for you all - but all I've got is this:
As Martin says in the video below, nice ostrich - but they need to do something about the top of the fence.
Ostrich really do look like big drag queen dinosaurs. This guy has nearly sliced his own jugular on that chicken wire.
And also, I give you this:
We went to Con Dao Island. For those following along at home: Con Dao is a little speck off the Southeast Coast of Vietnam. It's about a 45 minute flight from Ho Chi Minh city and populated mostly with stray dogs and foreigners learning to ride motorcycles. The government there have spent a decent bit on roading - all the better to teach the tays on. The roads are weird though, because there is what appears to be a whole set of city blocks -grid type thing- with no buildings between them. Just the grid of streets. For the tays to practice intersections at, I suppose.
At one intersection I got stared down by a traffic cop across the way. I grinned my biggest grin and stayed put until he'd passed me. I could tell he was thinking that he could probably get 20 bucks out of me for having no license - but that he'd need to speak English first, and maybe that was a bridge too far. This time.
I was more worried about starting with him watching. You know how when you're learning how to ride a bike you tend to be a bit bit wobbly until you get some speed up. Turns out it's true for motorcycles too.
Other wobbly moments include going around corners, being pointed at by laughing children, and when your $2 helmet flies off your head in a gust of wind while driving (terrified) along a rocky clifftop precipice, mildly strangling you. (Now I know why Vietnamese people never do the straps up on their helmets.)
Luckily I had Mr Martin sitting on the back the whole time - there to stick his foot out when I tried to do a U-turn, or plop my helmet back on my head in case of galemergency. And pay attention to this bit, Mothers: NOBODY GOT HURT.
Not even a stray dog.
Call it a Christmas miracle!
So many people responded to my last post that now I feel like I ought to deliver some wonderful juicy piece of trashy gossip for you all - but all I've got is this:
This is what happens when you call an ostrich an emu to its face.
Ostrich really do look like big drag queen dinosaurs. This guy has nearly sliced his own jugular on that chicken wire.
And also, I give you this:
This video is especially for my brothers,
who didn't really believe me when I told them
I drove a motorbike up a blustery mountainside on Xmas day.
who didn't really believe me when I told them
I drove a motorbike up a blustery mountainside on Xmas day.
We went to Con Dao Island. For those following along at home: Con Dao is a little speck off the Southeast Coast of Vietnam. It's about a 45 minute flight from Ho Chi Minh city and populated mostly with stray dogs and foreigners learning to ride motorcycles. The government there have spent a decent bit on roading - all the better to teach the tays on. The roads are weird though, because there is what appears to be a whole set of city blocks -grid type thing- with no buildings between them. Just the grid of streets. For the tays to practice intersections at, I suppose.
At one intersection I got stared down by a traffic cop across the way. I grinned my biggest grin and stayed put until he'd passed me. I could tell he was thinking that he could probably get 20 bucks out of me for having no license - but that he'd need to speak English first, and maybe that was a bridge too far. This time.
I was more worried about starting with him watching. You know how when you're learning how to ride a bike you tend to be a bit bit wobbly until you get some speed up. Turns out it's true for motorcycles too.
Other wobbly moments include going around corners, being pointed at by laughing children, and when your $2 helmet flies off your head in a gust of wind while driving (terrified) along a rocky clifftop precipice, mildly strangling you. (Now I know why Vietnamese people never do the straps up on their helmets.)
Luckily I had Mr Martin sitting on the back the whole time - there to stick his foot out when I tried to do a U-turn, or plop my helmet back on my head in case of galemergency. And pay attention to this bit, Mothers: NOBODY GOT HURT.
Not even a stray dog.
Call it a Christmas miracle!
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Building walls
One of the nice things for me about moving to Vietnam has been this blog. By writing it, I've created a record of a lot of the interesting things I've done, and having the blog to update has given me a reason to go and sort through photos, and an audience to tell stories to.
But the problem with being a public blog is that it's PUBLIC. The internet is goddamned accessible. And I'm a little shy.
When I first started writing, I thought nobody was reading it at all apart from a few friends and family. Those early posts had a really different feel to the later ones - partially because I was writing about all the things that were hard and horrible as well as the things that were amazing and fun.
But once I got here to Vietnam, and more and more people I barely knew were reading, I began to feel less and less confident about what I felt I should say online. I want to tell people back home about the people here, but I don't want to offend or exploit people by saying things about them publicly.
I want to talk about my job and my volunteer work - but I REALLY don't want to do that in a public forum.
So as I've integrated more and more with life in Vietnam, and interacted more and more with people, I've found that what I can confidently say has dwindled. There have been fewer and fewer posts, and now, I am barely writing at all.
But I really miss it! I want to tell you all about the cool stuff I'm doing! So I have decided to limit the audience. I love getting your comments and I love having the opportunity to share this amazing life with you.
If you want to keep reading, please drop me a line and I'll add you to the blog. There will be more posts, but you will have to log in to read them from now on. I hope that by having this extra layer of privacy, I'll feel more confident about writing more frequently.
And thanks to everyone who has been reading! I really appreciate your support!
But the problem with being a public blog is that it's PUBLIC. The internet is goddamned accessible. And I'm a little shy.
When I first started writing, I thought nobody was reading it at all apart from a few friends and family. Those early posts had a really different feel to the later ones - partially because I was writing about all the things that were hard and horrible as well as the things that were amazing and fun.
But once I got here to Vietnam, and more and more people I barely knew were reading, I began to feel less and less confident about what I felt I should say online. I want to tell people back home about the people here, but I don't want to offend or exploit people by saying things about them publicly.
I want to talk about my job and my volunteer work - but I REALLY don't want to do that in a public forum.
So as I've integrated more and more with life in Vietnam, and interacted more and more with people, I've found that what I can confidently say has dwindled. There have been fewer and fewer posts, and now, I am barely writing at all.
But I really miss it! I want to tell you all about the cool stuff I'm doing! So I have decided to limit the audience. I love getting your comments and I love having the opportunity to share this amazing life with you.
If you want to keep reading, please drop me a line and I'll add you to the blog. There will be more posts, but you will have to log in to read them from now on. I hope that by having this extra layer of privacy, I'll feel more confident about writing more frequently.
And thanks to everyone who has been reading! I really appreciate your support!
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